


Every hand's a winner

by MirandaTam



Series: Jedi Shmi AU [10]
Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Agender Character, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clone Wars, Corruption, Crime Fighting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 11:30:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16953195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirandaTam/pseuds/MirandaTam
Summary: Corellia has more than its fair share of troubles. Adi Gallia has more than her fair share of headaches.(Does not contain spoilers for Solo.)





	Every hand's a winner

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this around when Solo came out, since despite how generally disappointing the movie was, it did have some fun bits and pieces that I feel no remorse for stealing and twisting to my own purpose. You shouldn't need knowledge of the movie to read this, nor does it contain spoilers; I've just stolen a character or two.
> 
> I haven't abandoned this series, but also, the last year of college has... not been conducive to writing fanfiction, not with how much I need to be working on my thesis project. The Jedi Shmi AU will come to a conclusion eventually; until then I'll try and keep posting oneshots every so often, to remind folks that I do exist and that I still love you all.
> 
> Title from The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.  
>  _Every gambler knows_  
>  _That the secret to survivin'_  
>  _Is knowin' what to throw away_  
>  _And knowin' what to keep_  
>  _'Cause every hand's a winner_  
>  _And every hand's a loser_  
>  _And the best that you can hope for is to die_  
>  _in your sleep._

Corellia's nighttime air is smokier than it used to be; Adi Gallia almost wants to start breathing through her sleeve, but she knows that would be rude, so she refrains, taking slow breaths and focusing on not coughing on the pollution.

She hates — no, a Jedi does not hate. She _resents_ what these wars have done to her home planet, though, and she'll admit _that_ freely. Corellia is a spacer's planet, home to some of the best shipyards in the galaxy, and those have been desperately needed by the Republic. That doesn't excuse the way pollutants have leaked up into the atmosphere, doesn't excuse the way that runoff from the shipyards has contaminated the water, doesn't excuse the way that hundreds of thousands have been displaced by the war, by the growing need for workers, by the low wages provided for dangerous work…

All told, Adi looks forward to coming back here when the war is over, bringing down the full punishment of the law on the factory owners who have let standards slip.

(Part of her knows even that won't be enough. The Republic has always been liable to let this sort of thing slide, has always been liable to let things slip through the cracks. The war has only widened those cracks. It'll be the work of a lifetime to patch them up.)

(Good thing Adi has a lifetime ready to spend doing it.)

"The fuel should be ready by tomorrow morning, sir," says a voice through her commlink — Commander Carter, more likely than not, though Adi has always felt bad for being unable to differentiate voices over comms.

"Excellent," she says, then looks up with a sharp smile. "Now, what was that you were saying, about a carbon shortage causing delays? Shipyard seven doesn't appear to be suffering such concerns."

The foreman, a skinny pale human, stutters an apology. "Shipyard _seven_ — that is, uh, milady Jedi, they — they must be using, uh, unethical practices! I — I demand an investigation of them, there's — there's no other way—"

"Oh, I'm _sure_." Adi crosses her arms, looking out over the bay. "There will be an investigation, foreman." There _will_ be. "And you had better hope that that investigation doesn't show any negligence on _your_ part. After all, since no other shipyards are experiencing quite this same degree of carbon shortage, one could easily imagine that something…" Adi glances back at him for just a moment. "Could have happened to it, perhaps?"

The foreman gulps. "Of — of course not, milady Jedi."

Adi smiles, bright and sharp. "Of course not," she agrees. "Why don't you send me a revised timeline for the cruisers by this evening?"

"Of course, Lady Jedi," the foreman says, his voice faint.

Without another word, she turns and leaves, walking through the hallways echoing with the crash of metal on metal.

Alloy-grade carbon isn't expensive, but it isn't cheap, not in the quantities needed in shipbuilding; really, it's the process to create alloys such as duralumin and durasteel that costs money. To skim off the top of _that_ money would be impossible without taking the carbon, too, though; otherwise people would wonder where the alloyed metals were going. With the supposed carbon shortage, enough money is being shuffled around to buy more and recalculate the amounts of alloys produced that it would be much harder to notice a few thousand credits going missing.

Not impossible, though — and they need these ships badly enough that they can't afford to let things slip. They've sent _Adi Gallia_ , councilmember and master Jedi, to talk to a _factory owner_ when they need every Jedi they have to fight in the wars.

This is a different type of fighting, true, but Adi would rather fight their _enemies_ , not those who are supposed to be their allies.

Finally, she comes to a small room on the edge of the shipyards — not clean, not quiet, but she'd asked for a place where her troops could sit and rest for a while and this was what they'd provided. At the very least, it is private; she lets herself in and surveys the scene.

"Well," she says. "What's this?"

Captain Spine is sitting, legs crossed, on the floor; the rest of the few squads she'd brought are all carefully casual, sitting on chairs or standing a distance away, save for four troopers standing guard at the door.

Kneeling on the floor across from Captain Spine are two dirty children who can't be older than seven or eight standard. One of them has a bandage wrapped around her shoulder, one that's much cleaner than the rest of their clothes. Spine's work, more likely than not, as the captain is one of their backup medics.

"General Gallia," Spine says, not standing. "Meet Qi'ra and Han."

Adi stares down at the children, who stare up at her with wary expressions.

Carefully, slowly, she walks over to them and sits down on the floor near Spine, far enough away that the children won't worry about her grabbing them.

"It's nice to meet you," she says, and lets the corellian accent of her childhood slip through. "You can call me Adi."

"You're a Jedi," one of the children — Han, probably — accuses her.

"I am."

He watches her for a long minute. "Can we see your lightsaber?"

"You can," she says, and unclips it from her belt, setting it between them. "Don't press the buttons, though. It's hard for anyone but a Jedi to know how to turn on a lightsaber without risking their life, or the lives of their friends." That's a bit of a lie, but it's one for the sake of safety.

Han may be the spokesperson for their little group, but it's Qi'ra who reaches forward and takes the lightsaber.

"It's lighter than I thought it'd be," she says with a hint of a coreworld accent; Adi can't quite tell whether it's genuine, or whether it's something she's feigned to sound more proper.

"It is a _light_ saber," Adi points out, and the girl giggles a bit before passing it to Han. "What brings the two of you here?"

"Qi'ra scraped up her arm," Han says, his eyes still on the lightsaber. "And your captain said he'd be able to patch it up if we answered a few questions."

Spine coughs slightly. "I'm agender," they say. "Not a _him_."

"They patched it up," Han corrects himself. "And we said we'd answer their questions." He glances up at Adi, then, his eyes narrowed.

"I see," Adi says. "What have they asked you so far?"

"They wanted to know about the way things are run around here," Qi'ra says, looking down. "Who's in charge, who holds the debts, who people are scared of crossing. Whether the foreman here owes anything."

Adi glances over at Spine.

"Apparently, the foreman here owes quite a lot," they say quietly. "Made some promises he couldn't keep, now he's pulling in all he can so he doesn't lose his head to the local… what did you call her?"

"Rufristu Deezewn's the one who collects the debts," Qi'ra says. "She and Proxima both answer to Darado Salkar."

Adi is careful to hold back her sigh. Damn it all, the Republic doesn't have time _or_ resources to start dismantling the criminal undeground of the corellian shipyards, but they can't just leave it unchecked, either.

"Do either of you have families you need to worry about?" she asks, opening herself up to the Force, ready to catch any lies.

Qi'ra shakes his head. "Han's my brother and he's the only family I've got."

Han glances over at her, frowning. "But the others—"

"They're not _ours_ ," Qi'ra says quietly, like this is a long-running argument of theirs.

"So?"

"If they can only help some of us—"

"I can't promise good places to everyone," Adi says calmly. "But I can promise places better than here."

Qi'ra and Han are still glaring at each other a bit, but finally Qi'ra sighs. "We've got five or six kids under us, and three other groups like us, under Mattes and Riss, who are under Proxima."

Spine glances at Adi, confusion emanating from him, but she shakes her head. No time now to explain the intricacies of how children grow up in gangs, how they're the ones who teach younger children, who teach even younger children in turn. How they're viewed as basically expendable by the crime lords who look after them, how they make their own families, sometimes their own names…

Adi breathes in deeply, and looks around the room. She's not blind to the similarities; after all, she's thought that the children can't be more than eight, but no clone trooper in this room is older than twelve.

Force, she hates this war.

"I'm only on-planet for a few more days," she tells the children. "But I can't leave matters as they stand. If you tell me everything you know, everything I can use to take down this Darado Salkar and all his people as quickly and easily as I can, I can get you and the others off-planet, to somewhere safe."

That's also a bit of a lie — at this point, she would get them to safety whether or not they agreed to work with her. But she's worked with street children before, and so many of them have learned to distrust anyone in power, have learned that anything offered freely has a hidden cost, that they'll be more comfortable if she presents it as an even trade.

Adi is careful not to let herself grin — there's a lot of work to be done, but she loves a straightforward criminal hunt. Children always know more than anyone thinks they know, and hearing them describe the schedule of meetings that Proxima and Deezewn and Salkar have, the layout of the base, and the weapons they'll likely be carrying, Adi feels the most relaxed she's been since she set foot on Corellia.

Finally, here is something she can _fix_.


End file.
